Entries From Everest 3-22-14

Today was an exciting day! The entire team did a “live” rehearsal. What does that mean? Well…the team awoke at 3AM and slid on stiff boots and warm clothing, had a quick but nutritious breakfast and then began climbing the icefall with our headlamps lighting the way.

Climbing in the Khumbu Icefall is impossible to describe. It is impossible to relay what it’s like through photos and videos. However, the best I can say is it is simply spectacular! Giant blocks of ice tower above as you bob and weave, slice and dice your way through the giant maze.

The entire team did absolutely great! This “dry run” of going through half of the icefall inspires confidence so the next time we get up at 3AM we will all be ready and rearing to go through the entire icefall and occupy Camp One at 20,000 feet.

For now however, we are all happy and content after another great lunch with culinary masterpieces allowing us to fully recover. Next, a little tent time to rest these weary bones.

Hello out there. Billy here checking in for the rest of the gang after another day deep in the Khumbu. Not much to report on another rest day here, other than the fact that the NCell tower began sporadically working today after nearly a ten-day outage. Our team was starting to go crazy… I mean it was like camping back in the 90’s where you were in a deep black hole.

Anyway, clear skies this morning meant more helicopters buzzing basecamp as a film production crew has been ferrying tons of equipment up valley. The rumor is that they’ll need more than fifty flights to get all of their gear in, we’re all looking forward to it! Regardless, we’re rested and ready for the next phase of our climb which involves an early wakeup dress rehearsal for tomorrow. It’s the last step before we begin our first true rotation up the mountain.

All for now, will check in again tomorrow after another romp through the icefall…

Summit… of Kalapathar! The team took on Kalapathar, and had a great payday of views galore. Nice weather for most of the day. The Sherpa team also benefited from weather as they are nearly done with all the makings of Camp 2. One comment from a Sherpa that it was very hot in the Khumbu Icefall. Seems ironic.

The climbing team is gearing up for a possible early morning test run in the Icefall. We’ll keep you posted.

Today was a well-timed rest day. Following our recent daily pattern, it was sunny and calm in the morning and snowing and socked in by noon. The team took the chance to wash up and get clean during the sunny hours, and then hunkered down within the tents for the afternoon. The much talked about Everest Basecamp WiFi hotspots and 3G cell coverage have both been dysfunctional in the extreme of late, bringing the teams back virtually to the 1990’s in terms of connectivity… roughing it. Yesterday was a very popular day for Puja ceremonies and so the drab moraine rubble we call home was transformed by a vast spiderweb of interconnected colorful prayer flags streaming from the numerous chortens. Tomorrow, our Sherpa team is geared up for a carry to Camp II while the climbers have a conditioning hike to Kalapathar in mind.

Today the team went uphill in a few big ways. The Sherpa team carried loads all the way to Camp II (ABC) at 21,300 ft before returning to base while the climbing guides and climbers geared up and traveled to the first ladders in the icefall route. It takes about 90 minutes or so to reach those lowest ladders, but we figure it was pretty good practice. The “trail” involves a lot of crampon work up and down endless ice ridges before the actual fixed ropes begin. The fixed lines take a little getting used to when it comes to passing intermediate anchors in steep and awkward spots. Then we started encountering the much anticipated ladders, the first few this season being short and simple. But we continued on until we hit a slightly longer set of ladder sections tied together and bridging a pretty deep and dark crevasse. The team took turns tip-toeing across the rungs and from time to time just standing back to watch Sherpa climbers dance effortlessly across in their descent from a hard day of work. Descent from that big and worthy crevasse a little over 18,000 ft was pretty good training all in itself. The team moved better and better as climbers got accustomed to the routines of “arm-rappels” and clipping past snow and ice anchors. We reached the crampons-off point just as the daily afternoon snowstorm began, but that meant we were only ten minutes from camp. Once back in our home away from home it was an easy afternoon of lunch, games, naps and good conversation.

Hey, this is Dave Hahn calling from Mount Everest. We’re still doing voice dispatches. We don’t have internet connectivity yet. There is hope that we’ll have it in the next couple of days if they fix the cell tower down valley.

Things are going well up here. Our Sherpa team and our guide team went through the Icefall yesterday. Some of the first to go through the Khumbu Icefall for this season. We went to Camp 1 and came back down yesterday morning. All was well. Today the climbing team, went to Pumori Camp 1. Pumori is one of the beautiful mountains around base camp. Of course we didn’t go for the summit of that; it would be pretty technical. But going up to Camp 1 was good exercise and got us up to some altitude. It wasn’t the best day for being out in the hills. It was kind of snowy and gray but we made a good outing out of it. And then had an easy afternoon back here at base camp, so everything’s going well. The base camp is filling up. Lots of teams coming in now. So it’s getting a little bit more like regular Everest season by now. All for today. We’ll keep in touch.

Hello! Mark Tucker checking in from Everest Base Camp. We had a wonderful ceremony today. The puja altar was just as beautiful as it gets. A wonderful day. Just a real, pretty ceremony. Everybody in attendance and we all had a good time. So we packed up a lot a loads. We have our whole Sherpa staff heading up the hill to carry all the necessary provisions to get a great Camp 1 established. And our three super guides, Dave, Billy and JJ, are going to go get their feet wet and check on the route and check on the camp and get things looking up-to-snuff for the rest of the western team. We will do some maintenance down here- a little bit of hiking, maybe a shower day. We have plenty to do to prep ourselves for the near future. We are going to be up real early and get these boys off to work on their commute to Camp 1 tomorrow. So all is well and like I said, we had a really nice day. We’ll check in tomorrow.

Hi everyone, this is JJ Justman with the Everest climbing team, sitting here at base camp another day. It is the evening, right around 8 o’clock. We just finished another great dinner prepared by our sous chef. Today we had a really great day. It was our second day of training in the Icefall. We set up a nice obstacle course and got everyone familiar with some of the ups and downs and the crosses of what the Khumbu Icefall is going to entail. Everyone’s doing really well. It’s nice to have some practice on some fairly solid ground before we get to the real thing. Everyone just did a tremendous job. It’s really good to see great teamwork. Tomorrow we have some more teamwork with everyone- Sherpas, kitchen staff, climbing team members, Jeff [Martin] and Mark Tucker, our base camp manager. We are having our puja tomorow. That’s a nice little ceremony before we actually head up onto the mountain. We’ll tell you a little bit more about the puja tomorrow. Everyone’s doing well. It’s a beautiful night here. We’re going to play a little poker, some chess and have another great evening here at Everest Base Camp. Take care everyone. Thanks for following along. Ciao.

This is Dave Hahn, calling from Mt. Everest. A great day for us today, our Sherpa team set up what we call a Jungle Gym, out in the glacier not far from Base Camp, a network of ladders and fixed ropes for us to practice on. We made good use of that, we went out this morning for a session for a couple hours and then this afternoon as well.
It was a pretty nice day here at Base Camp. We are excited because Mark Tucker made his return, our Base Camp Manager is home.
Everybody is doing really well we still basically have Base Camp to ourselves. Most of the teams will be rolling in in the next few days, next week but today it was still pretty quiet and we were enjoying it. All is good here and we will let you know what goes on tomorrow.

This is Dave Hahn calling from Mount Everest. We had a great day today. The team rigged up for glacier travel and we went out in the Khumbu Glacier close to base camp with our crampons and ice axes. We went exploring up and down pinnacles and ridges of ice and just had a good hike in the glacier for a couple hours today. A nice day in the morning. And then in the afternoon and evening, it got a little more cloudy and started to snow a little bit in the evening. Everybody is doing really well. Tomorrow we are hoping to go and work out on some ladders and some fixed ropes in the Icefall on the lower glacier. So a practice day tomorrow. All is well. All for now.